Several Ways to Die Trying
by PachucaSunrise
Summary: Maybe Kenny's destined to remain a poor voyeur, just like he's destined to spend his whole existence with one metaphorical foot on Earth and the other in Hell. And, okay. Okay. If that's the way life is going to be for him, then so be it. He tells himself that he's fine with that, and he believes it, too. For awhile, at least.


**Several Ways to Die Trying**

"We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that deep inside us something is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch. Once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human spirit."

-e.e. cummings

 **xx.**

Kenny lives his life separate from everyone else.

There's a barrier that stands between him and the rest of the world, tall, imposing, all-encompassing. It boxes him in, and even though it's made of glass, it feels like the most indestructible material in the world. The glass wall is poverty. The glass wall is every time his friends chatted animatedly about their lives, their new toys, their families, and it's every time Kenny clenched his jaw underneath an orange hood, perpetually biting his tongue because he knew they couldn't help it; it wasn't their fault they were born with everything while he was born with nothing. The glass wall is and it isn't.

It's a glass wall, not a stone or wood fortification, simply because of its translucence. There are no cracks or patches of condensation to inhibit Kenny's view of the world. He sees everything clearly – maybe even clearer than anybody else. The glass wall makes the world simple and frank. It takes the big picture of life with all of its pigments and hues, blocky shadows and streaks of light, details and nuances, and paints over it with a brush dipped in black and white. There exists no middle class behind Kenny's glass wall; he sees the rich and the poor, the haves and the have-nots, and he accepts it. Similarly, there's the living and the dead, the loved and the unloved, the good people and the bad people, and he accepts all of those, too. Black and white. He sees it all. He wishes he doesn't.

Sometimes, the light from other people's lives comes in through his glass wall. It's refracted when it breaks through, all golden and watery and blurred around the edges, and it contains maybe an eighth of its original warmth, but it is warmth nonetheless and for that, he's thankful. His friends give off a lot of light. They practically glow with their happiness, so Kenny will, on occasion, wonder why they have so much light that it makes their lives practically burst at the seams when he has barely enough to fill his own. But then he looks through the glass again, at the black and white, and remembers: they just Have things, and he just Does Not Have. It's the way things work, and like everything else, he accepts it for what it is. Still, he wonders. He lies in bed at night, ignoring the mattress springs grazing his empty stomach and the sound of drunken anathemas being traded beyond peeling walls, and he wonders what it's like to Have. It's one of those things Kenny can't really wrap his mind around, but he has a hunch. There was a Christmas that he can barely recollect – it sits just on the edge of his memory, so everything's all fuzzy and disjointed – but there are a few aspects which remain a little sharper, more coherent than the rest. Hands that were normally used for hitting became tamped down with affection. Voices that were frequently raised in anger grew soft from comfort. Kenny isn't sure if that's what it feels like to Have, but he tells himself it is anyway.

For the most part, Kenny spends his time watching behind the looking glass. He moves through life like anyone else would on the outside – interacting with others, speaking his muffle-speak, following Stan, Kyle and Cartman on their bizarre adventures, things like that. They make him happy, so he thinks that, in some respects, the glass walls enclosing him on all sides don't form a cage. In others, however, the glass wall is the epitome of incarceration. The glass wall is a cruel beast. It lets Kenny live (when he isn't dying) and it lets Kenny see the world with mind-blowing clarity, but it never lets him _have_ any of the things he sees. It's thick enough to keep him a safe distance from the objects he covets, yet thin enough so he can press himself up against the glass to see every little detail, and there he forever stands: face and mouth and nose and wide eyes and gloved hands pressed against cold, hard glass as he looks into the store window lives of those who Have. Maybe he's destined to remain a poor voyeur, just like he's destined to spend his whole existence with one metaphorical foot on Earth and the other in Hell. And, okay. Okay. If that's the way life is going to be for him, then so be it. He tells himself that he's fine with that, and he believes it, too.

For awhile, at least.

 **xx.**

They meet for the first time, like most of their acquaintances, in preschool. The beginning of their relationship is juvenile. Kenny walks into a small classroom with its periwinkle walls covered in scribbles and glances at the kids inside, already feeling inadequate. Gymboree clothes, impeccably clean Velcro shoes, and $30 backpacks emblazoned with popular cartoon characters greet him. It's the very picture of middle-class white America. He does his best not to be self-conscious about the residual mud clinging to his shoelaces and pants from his four-mile trek to school, or the decidedly cheap parka which is about three sizes too big for his tiny frame, and the next hour passes by without incident.

The hands on a Mickey Mouse clock point to 10:37 AM when Butters approaches him for the first time. Kenny had been sitting around a table with Stan, Kyle, and Cartman as his company, laughing appreciatively at the fat one's brash insults and the redhead's angry rebuttals, but now he's hunkered down on the 'play rug', just kind of taking it all in.

"Hiya there!" comes a squeaky voice, and Kenny looks up in time to see another boy plopping down next to him. The newcomer is a blue-eyed blond, just like him, but dresses like the other kids – nicely, from his turquoise jacket that fits snug in all the right places down to his forest green pants and spiffy black shoes, the heels of which are knocking together excitedly. He's looking at Kenny as if he's the most fascinating person in the entire world, and that's something Kenny doesn't really know how to deal with, but he doesn't complain.

" _(Hi)_ ," Kenny replies, his own voice coming out muffled against a red scarf.

The other boy flashes him a smile so big that Kenny has to wonder if it hurts before proffering one small, round hand, caked in still-wet blue acrylic from an earlier finger painting exercise. "My name's Leopold," he says, "Leopold, ah, Stotch. B-but you can call me Butters, if you wanna. Everyone else does. What's _your_ name?"

After a hesitant beat, Kenny accepts the extended hand, giving it a thorough shake. When he pulls back, there's a new admixture of blue with the brown material of his glove. He can see through the looking glass that Butters knows what it feels like to Have, can feel the warmth of Butters' light beaming through to him, only a teensy bit diffused. It's a nice feeling. " _(Kenny)_ ," he answers simply.

Those innocent, sky-colored eyes blink back at him, obviously confused. "Wuh-what didja say?" he asks, cupping a clean hand around one ear and leaning in close.

" _(My name's_ _**Kenny**_ _)_ ," Kenny repeats himself, a little louder, though he doesn't bother to pull down his hood and speak uninhibited. That would require a level of vulnerability he's not really comfortable with.

Butters doesn't push it, though. He understands Kenny this time, and when he smiles, there are dimples indenting themselves into each cheek. "You talk real funny, Kenny."

" _(So do you)_ ," Kenny retorts, but not unkindly. He likes the way Butters talks. It reminds him of how his family enunciates, so it sounds like home to him, just more cozy and sunken in a little deeper.

A helpless shrug and gap-toothed grin is Butters' only response for a moment. Then, before Kenny can initiate conversation or, hell, _anything_ , Butters leans in closer and swipes his thumb over the knob of Kenny's nose, leaving a blue paint smear. The damp sensation makes him go momentarily cross-eyed, and Butters giggles. "I like you," he decides. "Wanna be friends?"

" _(Sure)_ ," Kenny replies, thinking to himself that he likes Butters, too.

 **xx.**

When a sizable chunk of his bedroom's ceiling sags and crumbles under the weight of too-much snow, Kenny stays at Butters' house for the eight days it takes his Dad to trade a can of Keystone Light for a pint of spackling. When their pantry becomes little more than a cobwebbed hole in the wall and his stomach feels like it's swallowing itself, he wordlessly looks at Butters across the lunch table and smiles as a plastic baggie bulging with snacks is slipped into his hands. When Butters comes over to _his_ house, which is littered from top to bottom with the marks of a family too engrossed in poverty and devoid of gumption to fix anything, and everyone's fighting until it's all ruined and a rare meniscus of tears wells up in Kenny's eyes, Butters hugs him and says, _it's okay, I-I'm sure they're just messin'_ , even though they both know it's not true. Kenny doesn't really care what other people think of him, but for some reason, he cares a lot when it comes to Butters. He thinks that maybe Butters cares a lot when it comes to him, too.

When he can, he tries to help Butters. Helping people, saving them – that's one thing Kenny believes he's pretty good at. Towards the end of sixth grade, Mr. and Mrs. Stotch grow more argumentative with each other, and the problems that had plagued their marriage for many years become less of a silently lurking shadow and more of a teeth-gnashing monster. One evening, Kenny walks out of another cross-country mission with Stan and Kyle and steps smack-dab into the middle of a fight between Linda and Stephen. _"…selfish whore!"_ , _"You cheating, cock-sucking sonofabitch!"_ , they're yelling, while their son and Kenny sit openmouthed in mangled shock only one room away. Butters is used to his parents yelling at him, but he's definitely _not_ used to them yelling at each other, a fact that's written all over his terrified face. It breaks Kenny. It breaks him because it's like seeing a reflection of himself.

And it makes Kenny realize something: maybe he's not so different from Butters after all. Hell, maybe he's not so different from _anybody_. What if everyone has their own glass wall, an invisible barrier between themselves and others, a culmination of all their insecurities or social status or whatever else makes them _feel_ different? What if everyone feels the way he feels – to varying extents? With this theory, Kenny takes his friends and holds them under a different light. Eric probably has a glass wall that separates him from everyone who still has both parents. Butters probably has one that exists because he was born with the blessing-slash-curse of innocence, one that's thick with the unrealistic expectations and rules of his parents. And Kenny's… well. Kenny has problems that are very, _very_ different, but it doesn't matter. Pain is pain and all struggle is equal and fact of the matter is, Butters needs him right now.

" _(Wanna see a trick)_?" he proposes, nudging Butters gently. Butters ducks his head, nodding, and when they walk out into the quiet winter air, he grabs Kenny's hand and doesn't let go.

 **xx.**

A few months later, Butters asks Kenny if they can hold hands again.

"If y-you don't think it's too… too faggy," he adds, a preemptive flinch in his words, like he's expecting Kenny to reach out and backhand him across the face.

But Kenny doesn't do that, even if he _does_ think holding hands is a little bit faggy. He wants to hold Butters' hand, too, and if that makes him a fag, then so be it. The more time he spends around Butters, the less he cares what other people think. " _(Okay),_ " he says, and their palms are pressed together and their fingers knit tight and Kenny allows himself a little smile under his hood until they are mirror images of each other. For the first time in the history of South Park or maybe even all of rural Colorado, two young boys hold hands in the middle of their town, in the middle of everyone they know, and nobody – _nobody_ – even gives them a second glance. They are invisible in the best way possible.

Kenny doesn't notice it until they're at the end of Main Street, where he releases the breath he didn't even know he'd been holding. What he'd expected, he can't remember – heckling? Strange looks? Crowds of the fervently religious, swooping down to shatter their displays of platonic affection? In South Park, no possibility is too strange. But maybe that's just it: so much strangeness transpires here that little oddities, like two boys holding hands, go undetected. A tiny ripple in a whole ocean of abnormality. Yeah, that's it, Kenny thinks. In South Park, the strange can be normal and the normal can be strange. In South Park, maybe the poor can be rich and the unhappy can be happy and the boys-who-sometimes-like-other-boys can like whoever the hell they want, too.

"Anything can happen in South Park," Kyle likes to say, but he always says it with an exasperated sigh, a touch of annoyance; he makes it a bad thing.

Kenny starts to say it in his mind, and he always says it with a warm smile, a touch of hope; he makes it a good thing.

 **xx.**

The day following what is allegedly a failure of epic proportions, Cartman channels his anger into unleashing the mother of all insults on Kenny. It includes referential jibes at Kenny's clothes, poverty, skills as a best friend (or lack thereof), fencepost physique, redneck family, house – a cardboard box, _now filled with jumbo-sized packing peanuts!_ – as well as the unending black pit of hopelessness that promises to be Kenny's future.

This earns little more than an eye roll from Kenny, who has heard it all before in various permutations and thus remains unfazed. What _does_ surprise him, however – what _does_ faze him – is when Butters stands up, walks to the other side of the table and, with his jaw locked, knees Cartman right in the groin. "Don't you _ever_ make fun of him, a-asshole!" he yells.

Kenny isn't sure why or what just happened. By the look on Butters' face, neither is he.

 **xx.**

They talk.

They talk when the snow patters softly to the ground outside, tessellating intricate veneers on their bedroom windows. They talk when the sunlight beats down from a robin egg sky and gets caught everywhere – in blades of grass, in vinyl house paneling, in each other's expressions. They talk about the big things and the little things; like why God does the things he does, why two adults who should be perfectly capable of solving problems constructively have to raise their voices, and _if I turned into a zombie, like, right now, what would you do?_ They talk at ungodly hours of the morning with their phones cradled against a pillow, in fleeting moments and fragmented conversations at school, when Cartman isn't around to bitch and call them fags because fuck, he really does that a lot, and sometimes they talk with him around anyway.

This time, the snow is piled 5 inches thick on the sash of Butters' bedroom window. They're sitting with textbooks balanced in their laps and notes strewn helter-skelter; Butters is actually doing homework, while Kenny pretends to give a shit about his grades because he likes the way Butters gets when he's proud of him. A paper thin silence is spread over the room when, apropos of nothing, Butters starts talking. He talks about how, on some days, he just wants to make people happy, and on others, he doesn't think he can and wonders what's the point of it all if no one's going to care. He talks about the days (most of them) when he wakes up, looks at his reflection in the mirror, and wonders if something's wrong with him – if there's a reason why he wants so badly to _be_ with someone, but knows intrinsically that this 'someone' won't be a girl. He talks about how he wants things too much and how he's scared of the prospect of high school and he thought that being a kid was hard, well, being a teenager is a whole lot harder. He talks until his voice goes hoarse and snow cakes the window and their homework is cold from neglect. And then he stops.

There's silence again as Butters stares down at his hands, wringing them together pensively. When he glances up at Kenny, a few moments later, he looks like he's seeing for the first time. "I've never told that stuff to anyone," he says.

 **xx.**

That Christmas would go down in Kenny's memory as one of the worst.

Kenny has never had great expectations of anything, and Christmas is no exception. When Kenny closes his eyes and thinks about Christmas, he sees Polaroid snapshots of family threaded through with dental floss, one string of ugly blue LED lights, and three modest boxes, all around a few withered pine tree boughs stuffed into a terra cotta planter. So it's not too far outside the realm of possibility when Kenny stumble-steps into their living room on Christmas morning and realizes that not only are there no gifts under the tree, but there is no hideous blue glow on the walls and no heat welling up from the vents either.

Upon seeing this, Mr. McCormick's face takes on an almost comical indignity, as if he hadn't known full well that this was going to happen, as if _he_ wasn't the one who had failed to pay the bills this month, and he throws his hands in the air. "What kind of heartless S.O.B. just turns off the goddamn heat and electricity on Christmas?!" he asks, throwing his hands up in the air. For the next twenty minutes, he is certifiably pissed off; after that, he doesn't seem to care. The rest of the McCormick brood follow suit, but Kenny puts a mental obituary on it just because. _R.I.P. my thirteenth Christmas. This one sucked hairy dick._

Since there is nothing better to do, Kenny tells his parents he'll be back in time for mass and traipses off to the Marsh household. The shock, the annoyance, and the disappointment of the day's beginnings have already cycled through him. By the time he reaches Stan's front door, he is back to his usual modus operandi – that is, accepting the fact that his life really and truly _does_ suck hairy dick sometimes, but there is nothing he can do about it. He expects Stan to be his usual serene, moralistic, Stan-like self. He expects Stan to be sharp-tongued yet affable and happy, like he always is. He definitely does not expect Stan to be complaining. Stan, sitting cross-legged in front of a full, fluffy, towering pine tree, at home amongst open presents and their crumpled Hallmark wrappings scattered here and there, _warm Stan_ , _comparatively rich Stan_ , has the nerve to complain about one present he didn't get – right to the face of Kenny, who received nothing for Christmas and until then had thought relatively little of it.

"But, I mean, whatever," Stan finishes about five minutes later, rather lamely. "My Dad's a dick. Oh well. Cartman probably has it, that lucky bastard, I'll just like… pawn it off of him or something, I don't know. Anyways, how was your Christmas, Kenny?"

The power is still shut off and there's an overwhelming chill to the house when Kenny comes home early. He seethes in silence throughout mass, kicking the varnished pew in front of him and wiggling his toes inside three concentric layers of socks. The sermon, the hymns, the liturgy, all of it is reduced to white noise, smothered by the sound of Kenny's thoughts, and he leaves the church without waiting for his parents.

"K-Kenny! Kenny! Hold up there!"

For a moment, a disembodied voice is the only sound filling the lifeless parking lot; then the slapof dress shoes against pavement joins it, then the sound of belabored breathing, and then, like magic, Butters is standing before him, tiny granular snowflakes clinging to his hair and pressed blue gingham button-up. It's almost enough to make Kenny, who lives on a rotation of two or three all-purpose outfits, feel self conscious of the same parka and tacky sky colored suit he's worn in various iterations since late childhood. Almost, but not quite; mostly, he's just appreciative of how _good_ Butters looks right now. As if able to read Kenny's mind, Butters smiles a big, scintillating Crest toothpaste smile and rubs his hands together. "What are you doin' out here?" he asks, bouncing up and down a little. "I-It's kinda cold."

" _(Well, I'm pretty fucking hardcore, so I don't notice it),_ " Kenny replies with a playful jounce of his eyebrows. Butters laughs. In spite of everything, he has to smile. He always has to smile around Butters.

"How are you doin'?" Butters asks.

Kenny watches the breath roll out past his lips, watches it shine in the winter light and disappear. " _(Fine, I guess),_ " he replies without thinking.

"No, you ain't."

Kenny looks up. " _(What?)_ "

"W-well, I could be wrong, but you don't seem fine to me," Butters says, shaking his head apologetically. "Like the way you're standin', right now. You look awful sad. You look like someone who's been carryin' around a whole lot of weight for a whole lot of time. That's all."

Huh. Kenny stares at Butters for some time, wondering how it's possible that Butters can see all the things everyone else is blind to. Then Kenny doesn't see anything at all, because he shuts his eyes and lifts his arms a little and feels it: settling on his shoulders, concaving his chest, stomping all over his brain, feels it all around him.

"Do you wanna talk about it?" Butters asks, and his cufflinks catch in the muted winter light when he grabs Kenny's hand.

This is the part where Kenny says 'no'. This is the part where Kenny laughs it off and tells Butters he doesn't talk about feelings, feelings are for pussies, for fags, for people who aren't Kenny. But he doesn't. For whatever reason, he doesn't. He tells Butters all about his morning, about the cold and the dark and the yawning gap under their pathetic tree, about Stan and his presents and his house and his tree and his Everything Kenny is Not, about how he just doesn't understand why people can want so much out of life even though he wants things too and it makes him guilty sometimes, and the places where each of their fingers knit together is warm, so _warm,_ like he's holding the sun in the palm of his hand, and it's good. They're good.

Once Kenny is finished, Butters leans back against the frost-coated brick walls of the church, squints up at the sky, bunches up his lips. "There's nothin' wrong with wantin' more outta life than what you've got right now," he says at last, now focused entirely on Kenny. "H-Heck, if you didn't want _somethin'_ , well, you just wouldn't be human. You know? Just 'cause things are bad right now doesn't mean they've gotta be that way forever. They can change. _You_ can change, if you wanna, but I don't think you need to. You're strong, Kenny. You're smart and you're strong and you've been through so much s-shit already, anything else is gonna be a piece of cake. You can make it, if you want to. And you should. You _should_ want things, 'cause everyone else does, and you deserve it more than anyone I know."

Kenny beams and slides a thumb up Butters' wrist, touches him in the space between skin and fabric. Nearby, people are trickling out of the church and heading toward their cars, but they don't matter. Not right now. " _(What do YOU want?)_ " he asks.

"Hm?"

" _(Out of life, I mean.)_ "

Butters has to think about this for only a moment. "To be happy."

" _(You're not happy right now?)_ " Kenny frowns; his thumb, which had been rubbing soft subconscious circles into Butters' skin, ceases its motions. He never wants Butters to be unhappy.

"No, I am," Butters replies. "Most of the time, anyways. I just want it to stay that way."

The simplicity of this statement, the honesty, floors Kenny. He blinks at Butters, blinks again, then blinks once more, as if the repetitive act will change what he sees before him, will make Butters disappear into the grays and browns and whites of the church parking lot because sometimes Butters just doesn't seem _real_. " _(You're a good kid, Butters,)_ " Kenny says, sincere.

An accordion smile unfolds on Butters' face, his eyes lowering demurely, like he isn't quite sure what to do with that. For a moment, he just stands there and stares down at flecks of snow arpeggiated against the pavement; then he shifts, lurches forward, tugs down on Kenny's hood with gentle fingers, and brings their mouths together, melting into him. His palms clutch at blue lapels, then uncurl with a quiet sound of release. Curling, uncurling, coiling, reaching. Kenny touches Butters at the junction between jaw and neck, feels the divot of smooth skin there and wonders, once again, how Butters can be real.

They both taste like red Communion wine.

"Um. What was that?" Kenny blurts out once they've parted.

Color splashes across Butters' cheekbones, bright and red. Kenny isn't sure if it's from the cold, their previous activities, or a combination of both. "Uh. I-it's, ah, your Christmas present?" Butters tries, laughing, and rubs the back of his neck. "Since you didn't get one, or nothin'. Is that okay? If it's not, it's – oh, Jesus, it's _not_ okay, is it? Aw, crap, Kenny, I'm sorry, I shoulda known –"

"Butters," Kenny says, his index and middle finger still resting on Butters' jaw.

"– I'd take it back if I could, honest, Kenny, I just don't wanna lose you, _oh, Lordy, that sounded really gay_ –"

" _Butters_. Dude, listen. It's okay. I _liked_ it."

"– but I _am_ gay, or part-gay, so maybe I just can't help it –" Butters stops, his entire body going rigid before all the tension seeps out of it. He grins and picks at the sleeve of his shirt. "You… you liked it?"

"Yeah," Kenny says, grinning back.

After some time, the Stotches come out of the church all stiff with religious conviction and the McCormicks tumble on in their wake. Butters squeezes Kenny's hand, squeezes it like he can transfer all the warmth and light and happiness and love inside of him through Kenny's skin and bones so it sinks right into his heart, and they go back to their own families and their own houses and they ride there on paths that are different yet somehow run parallel.

At home, there is still no heat and still no power, but Kenny feels warmer than ever.

 **xx.**

Death #1,356, as always, goes a little something like this: a new fad/concept/controversy inexplicably finds its way to bantam South Park via the government/celebrities/higher powers and, at some point in their joint quest to navigate the ensuing river of craziness, Kenny's entrails are smeared across the sizzling northbound freeway, looking for all the world like a piece of gum stuck to a shoe sole and every bit as pathetic.

The sound of caterwauling and sappy romantic dialogue oozes from Satan's lair. Ever the frugal one, Kenny seizes this moment of apparent distraction to sneak out the back gates of Hell, slipping through the strata that partition the living from the eternally damned, and pops back up in the middle of South Park, his weightless body glowing with a blue effervescence.

Wind whistles right through him as he glides across streets, ignoring all but one house that's become nearly as familiar as his own.

He concentrates and holds his breath to diffuse through the second story bedroom window. Starlight spills everywhere and catches in the still-childlike furnishings, illuminates salty tear tracks forming rivulets down the face of a thirteen year-old boy, curled up under too many rumpled blankets. In his outstretched hand dangles an old photograph of him and Kenny, all dog-eared edges and warm colors and smiling faces against a rolling Southern backdrop.

Kenny looks down at the boy who already symbolizes so much to him and feels a pang of deep sadness and empathy. Does he cry like this for every death? Will he cry like this for every death after? How many more deaths are there, anyway – is it limitless? The prospect of inflicting that much pain on _anyone_ , let alone Butters and no matter how temporary, is horrifying to Kenny. He puts it out of his mind and won't think about it again until years later, when he paces back and forth in an effort to calm his pre-wedding jitters.

With great hesitance, with greater reverence, he rests one hand on Butters' cheek, opaque blue on peach. " _(I'm here),_ " Kenny murmurs. He always is.

Come morning, the photograph will be back in its frame, Butters will hug Kenny like he's done every day for the past six months, and he'll wonder aloud why his eyes are so darn puffy. Over seventy-thousand people will have died and never come back in the time it takes Kenny to regenerate, but in South Park, life goes on.

 **xx.**

Butters lies in the dead, dead autumn grass that used to be green, green and says, "Tell me a story, Ken."

Kenny lies next to him, looks at the old, old boy who used to be so young, young, and folds both hands atop his chest while he waits for a story to come to him. It comes, and he tells Butters about a boy who dies all the time but no one ever remembers, even when they'd seen it happen with their own two eyes. It's a story that Butters already knows. It's a classic. Shit, it could be a South Park Aesop.

Butters rolls over to face Kenny and sticks out his pink lower lip. "Aw, that was a sad one," he pouts. His voice sounds like no presents on Christmas morning. "W-Why'd you have to go an' make it so sad?"

Kenny shrugs. "Not all stories are happy."

"Yeah, but you can make 'em happy, if you want. Nothin' has to be sad."

Another shrug.

Butters frowns some more at that, like maybe if he frowns hard enough Kenny will stop being such a pessimist, and then he rolls onto his back again. Inside the house, there's yelling. White noise. All yells sound the same after awhile. Butters closes his eyes and pulls words from inside himself, from the pale, pale sky that used to be so blue, blue in the summer, and tells this story:

 **/.**

There once was a boy who died all the time. He died a lot and in a lot of different ways, but no matter how or where or why he died, he'd always come back the next day. Now that would be bad enough, but the worst part was that no one remembered when he died – nobody, not a soul. This made the boy awfully sad. He didn't really ask for much, you know; he was a good person, and he was good with most things that happened, because he was also smart and he understood that life was just like that sometimes. But all he wanted was for someone, anyone, to remember. Just once.

(No, Kenny, I'm not 'shittin' you'. This is a happy story. I promise! Just listen.)

One day, there's a fire in a house down the street, the kind of fire you can feel on your face from miles away and the smoke covers the whole dang town. Outside there's firefighters and people, so many people, and they all watch it go up in flames and panic because there's still a baby trapped in there and the fire truck they called for backup is running late. The boy sees what's happening and he runs up to the house, but instead of standing there like a dumb turkey with everyone else, he pushes through the crowd and goes inside. It's hot in there. Really hot. The smoke and heat make his eyes water, but he's brave, braver than anyone else, so he just ducks his head and keeps going until he finds the room with a crying baby inside.

He snatches up the baby and holds it against his chest and looks for where to go next. There's a lot of fire in the doorway and in almost everywhere else, except for the window. He rushes up to the window and tries to open it so they can both get out, but it's stuck. For a moment, he doesn't know what to do; but then, he does. He just does. He kicks at the window with his feet, smashes it with his fist and shoulder, and tosses the baby out the window so it lands safely in the arms of its Mom. The boy thinks about getting out too, but the fire is too much. Even for him.

The next day, he is back again, just like that, just like he always is, but this time is different. He heads into town to get something to eat at Bennigan's, because everyone loves Bennigan's, and it's like everybody he knows is already waiting for him in the parking lot. "Thank you!" they say. "For everything!" The boy is confused for a moment, but then it hits him: they remember! They know that he dies! He sure is happy then, especially when he sees the Mom and the baby he rescued, and he only gets happier when they all step aside to reveal a yellow plane. "This is yours now," they say. The boy walks up to the plane, touches it to make sure it's real. Besides for people to remember his deaths, the only other thing he's ever really, really wanted is to be able to someday leave and go anywhere he wants. He can't believe it's real. But it is. It's happening.

He climbs into the plane and starts it up, feels the engine _hummmm_ ing all around him. It's the best sound he's ever heard. "Is there anything you'd like to say?" a news reporter asks just before the plane is about to take off.

The boy thinks for a moment, and then smiles and winks at the crowd. "Remember me," he says. "Just remember, please."

And they do.

 **xx.**

Kenny becomes everything Butters needs him to be. If there's a space in Butters' life that is yet to be filled, he bends and twists and tailors himself until he fits. If Butters ignores the keening gaslight of his green Honda and finds himself stranded on the back roads leading away from South Park, Kenny laces up his best shoes (that is, the ones with no holes), fills a canister of gasoline, and walks ten miles just for the look on Butters' face when he grins and cheekily waves it above his head. If Cartman skewers Butters with a particularly hurtful insult that he has no comeback for, Kenny swoops in, puffs out his chest, and verbally assaults the fat boy with every profanity-laced obloquy he knows. If it came down to it, Kenny is almost certain he'd do anything for Butters.

But for the most part, his dramatic avowals of Anything aren't necessary. The times when Butters needs him the most are those nights when his parents' fighting ricochets off the walls, those days when their stony silence communicates more than words could ever hope, and the only thing Butters needs is someone who _understands_. Understanding, relating, listening to other people's problems – that's really all Kenny is good at, so it's not that hard to help Butters during these times. Increasingly, he doesn't even need to speak; he touches Butters' shoulder, feels the muscles locking up underneath each fingertip, notes the quiet release of tension that follows, and allows Butters to slump back against him gratefully. Sometimes, it's just enough to know that there's someone out there who has been where you've been and still likes you in spite of it.

(He doesn't know how anyone can possibly _not_ like Butters. He is of the opinion that people who don't like Butters probably also don't like fuzzy socks, or the first really warm day after a freezing cold winter, or the feeling you get when your throat's dry so you drink some water and then your whole body feels refreshed. Being around Butters pretty much feels like all of those things combined.)

Their friendship is not a one-way street, either. Between sophomore and junior year, Kenny divides his summer pretty evenly between hanging out with Butters, hanging out with Stan and Kyle and Cartman (whom, due to the crazy-shit-just-happens-to-us nature of _their_ friendship, require a little more time), hanging out with the footloose girls down the street who taste like tequila and laugh all bubbly when Kenny asks if their Dads own a shotgun, and hanging out at the derelict hardware store Kenny somehow managed to snag a part-time job in. Every afternoon, Butters swings by with some food and conversation – homemade chocolate chip cookies plus speculation as to all the one dollar bills Sally Darson carries around, for example – and they sit on the stainless steel countertops and eat and talk and accidentally knock over trays of bolts.

"H-Honey, I'm hoooome!" Butters will announce as he pushes open the swinging double doors and brandishes their lunch for that day.

Kenny will reply with something equally exaggerated, domestic, and 1950s in tone, the kind of sitcom dialogue they find humorous as hell because they know better than anyone how unrealistic it is, and it all just sort of snowballs from there. Once their food is gone, they'll slide off the countertop and whittle away the rest of Kenny's break by placing lawn gnomes in compromising positions. They both find the sight of bearded statuettes frozen mid-sodomy incredibly amusing, and they won't stop laughing until their ribs ache or Kenny's boss shoots them a disapproving glare; at this point, Butters will hug Kenny, maybe give him a kiss on the cheek if no one else is around, and then, with a promise to text or call instead _'cause all that textin' lingo is confusing, I mean, is it really so awful to spell things out?_ , he'll stroll out those same swinging double doors, his footfalls making little waves of sound that echo off the tarmac. When he's in a particularly good mood, he'll do a cartwheel right there in the parking lot, turning and bowing for Kenny afterwards. It reminds Kenny of the time he saw a pink-sequined vest-wearing Butters being led out of the downtown gymnastics studio by Mrs. Stotch, his young eyes skittering from the trophy in his hands to the townsfolk amassing nearby. Apparently, Butters is good at gymnastics. Butters is good at a lot of things. Sometimes, Kenny wonders how it's possible that someone like Butters can exist in his world.

Sometimes, he thinks it isn't.

Sometimes, Butters looks at Kenny too sweetly and it drives him crazy, makes him want to bathe in kerosene and set himself on fire. Sometimes, Butters doesn't look at him at all. That drives Kenny even crazier.

Sometimes, Butters says and does things that don't exactly make sense to Kenny, the sort of things that crawl under his skin and press at his skull and don't let him sleep because he's too busy thinking _maybe, maybe_.

Like when they're sharing a Fresca and a box of City Wok while coming up with new ways to make the lawn gnomes give each other blowjobs, and Butters laughs at something Kenny says (God, he loves it when he laughs), presses their foreheads together, interlocks their fingers, and whispers sincerely, "Thank you."

"For what?" Kenny asks, blinking.

Butters just smiles and says, "For everything."

(Sometimes, Kenny wonders if he has a chance.)

 **xx.**

Other times, though, Butters says things that _do_ make sense – maybe a little too much.

Butters says: "I-I don't think anything is really good or bad. I mean, it's all kinda in how you look at it. If you look at life like it's gonna be bad, well, then it's probably gonna be bad. If you look at it like it's gonna be good, though – then maybe it'll be good, too. It's, like, perspective. You know?"

And Kenny says, because he knows it's true: "You're right."

Butters says: "I figure it's the little things that are the most important. Maybe if everyone stopped an' appreciated all the little things that are good, just once in awhile, everyone would be just a tiny bit happier. I dunno, it sounds kinda stupid, but I think the little things can become big things if you just let 'em."

And Kenny says, because he knows it's true: "I think so, too."

Butters says: "I dunno what I'd do if you ever died, Kenny."

And Kenny says, because he knows it's true: "You would live."

 **xx.**

Her name is Maria.

In a house down the street – 652 Avenue de los Mexicanos – is where she lives, though 'house' is a pretty generous use of the term; two windows are broken out completely, while spider web-like cracks adorn every other, and the front side is painted Day-Glo green even though the rest of the house's four walls are a powdery pink. On weekends, the strip of stunted grass that constitutes a front yard is occupied by fluffy cats and skinny dogs and the occasional potbellied drunkard. The house's interior is similarly unorthodox, from the ugly tweed couch, frayed Oriental rugs, and sheen of dust that coats its floor, to the black and white checkered ceiling tiles and strings of colorful Christmas lights which are up every season except winter.

Maria is Kenny's girlfriend, and she is every bit as unique as the house she lives in. She likes to dance, but not in public – she prefers the cramped yet quiet space of her own bedroom, where she can twist and twirl to her parents' old Earth Wind & Fire records and belt every word into a hairbrush. She is a happy person, one of the happiest that Kenny has ever met, in fact, but she never smiles with her teeth – they stay perpetually hidden behind her voluptuous lips, which feel smooth and pliant against Kenny's own. She is also nice and funny and has no qualms with saying _"suck it up, McCormick"_ on the rare occasion Kenny tries to throw a pity party. For all intents and purposes, she is the perfect girlfriend, a dream, a beauty, a remedy to everything Kenny could ever want. But as Kenny kisses her on the ugly tweed couch, as she moves her hips in time to "Let's Groove", as the fluffy cats and skinny dogs and potbellied drunkards all raise their voices in a chorus of confusion, Kenny realizes that he _doesn't_ want her – not enough, anyways – and she's no Butters. He's not sure how or when or why that became a character flaw, but it did, and it is. Not wanting to string her along, they break up after five months of dating.

Butters is the first to find out, of course, and Kenny half expects to see him darting in and out of lunch tables at school the next Monday, shouting, _"Fellas! Fellas! Didja hear that Kenny broke up with Maria Gonzales?"_ , like he used to do when they were kids. Instead, he invites Kenny over to his house so they can make a batch of 'breakup brownies', and somehow, inexplicably, Cartman winds up in the kitchen with them, where he steeples all ten fingers under his double chin and yells sexist jokes about making sandwiches and is generally unhelpful. After an hour or so of this, Cartman loudly voices his opinion on everything from their cooking skills to their best friend skills – all of which are _totally weak, you gahs_ – before lumbering out of the kitchen. Once he's gone, Kenny pulls down his hood, and Butters has the same look he got when the sun came out after two weeks of nonstop blizzards. Butters always shows his teeth when he smiles.

It makes him think of Maria, who acted happy all the time but never smiled with her teeth. He wonders if she was ever truly happy. He wonders if there are a lot of people like that out there.

Kenny never does get to meet Butters' boyfriend, so he can only imagine what he's like, drawing inferences from those snippets of conversation when Butters' voice goes all soft and sugary, like the world's most saccharine candy, and his own warped imagination. In his mind, he thinks that Bradley is everything he isn't; he says the right things at the right time, he doesn't quite possibly have a porn addiction, he doesn't drink, he doesn't smoke, he has friends who would utter more than some contrived catchphrase when he dies, he is handsome, he is pure, he is well-adjusted, he is rich, he is perfect for Butters, he is he is he is he is he is. On some days, Kenny plays kick the can with Stan and Kyle and pretends the scrunched-up wad of green aluminum is this Everything Man, that the thick red Mountain Dew letters are his thick red kissed-by-Butters lips, and Kenny is filled with a sort of sick satisfaction when he pivots his leg and sends the can flying up, up, up, glinting in the moribund sunlight before it falls back to Earth. Which, okay. It's pretty fucked up. Even Kenny can admit to that. But it's altogether harmless, and in those moments when Kenny can't decide whether he wants to strangle this guy for having the only thing Kenny's ever really wanted or thank him for making Butters so much happier than he could ever be capable of doing, it helps.

That's why, when Butters comes to his house with his eyes tinted red and his shoulders stooped and he throws his arms around Kenny, mumbling something about _boyfriend_ and _broke up with me_ and _this morning_ , Kenny is taken aback. Flabbergasted. Surprised. Shocked. Caught off-guard. Whatever you call it, it's not what Kenny had planned or even expected. A small part of him is jumping for joy at this news, reveling in the fact that Butters is available, that there is no longer anything tangibly standing between him and what he's wanted for so long, but the rest of him – the part of Kenny that feels what Butters feels and never wants to see him upset – is somber. He hugs Butters and pulls him close, hoping in a really embarrassingly juvenile way that Butters can't tell how fast his heart is beating. " _(Hey)_ ," he whispers, letting his hands move softly, fondly up and down Butters' back. " _(You gonna be okay?)_ "

Butters nods into the crook of his neck. "Y-Yeah… I will," he replies, voice hoarse. When he rears back and looks Kenny in the eye, there's a wet, quiet smile on his face. "It might take a little while, but I'll be right as rain before you know it."

" _(Good_ )," Kenny replies sincerely, though he's not too surprised by his answer; Butters has always possessed incredible foresight when it comes to relationships.

Butters curls back into the warmth of Kenny's chest, fists his hands in loose orange clothing, tucks his head just under Kenny's chin. They stay like that for a long time, neither knowing how to break the silence, but then Butters snuffles against Kenny's skin, "He was kinda a dick, anyways", and just like that, all the tension they've carried around with them for fuck-knows-how-long dissipates, unravels, falls to the floor, and their chests heave until they don't know if they're crying or laughing or maybe a bit of both.

 **xx.**

"They're gettin' a divorce."

Kenny hates days like these. The tobacco in his used Camel – bummed off a highway shoulder on the walk home from school – coats his lungs with nasty convection; its smoke twists and curls upward, stands out against the colorful houses and tall green mountains but blends in with the smooth, cement-gray sky, which is flooding the town with rainwater, and Kenny hates it. Yet not even his annoyance with the weather or the cigarette hanging loosely from his lips can compare to this, this protective _rage_ he gets, when he sees the rain soaking Butters' slouched body, saturating his coat, making that bright blond hair fall down and frame his sad, sad (relieved, relieved?) face, and Kenny doesn't even have to ask questions. He knows Butters. He knows where Butters has been because he's been there himself. He knows what Butters is thinking because he's thought it before. He knows what Butters is feeling because he's fucking _felt it_ like the most drawn-out death, and he knows what Butters needs because Butters has given all that and more to him, so much more, in the past. The cigarette falls from his limp hands and floats down a storm drain. They head inside.

As soon as the door to Kenny's bedroom is shut behind them and the lock _clinks_ with finality, Butters yanks Kenny's hood down and kisses him like the sky is going to come crashing all around them if he doesn't, like he's trying to purge himself of something. Kenny doesn't even know what's happening – his thought process right now is a steady stream of _Butters is kissing me, Butters is touching me, Butters is pinning me against the door, what the_ fuck – but there's some distant, infinitesimal part of him that says this is a bad idea, Butters is an emotional wreck right now and doesn't know what he wants, not like _you_ do, and as Butters whimpers into his mouth, as Butters tugs on his belt loops, as Butters make his whole world flop upside-down, Kenny breaks off the kiss and breathlessly asks, "Are you sure?"

And Butters, with a flush spreading across his cheeks and a shy tilt to his kiss-plumped lips, nods and replies, "Yeah, I am. I mean, if you wanna…"

And that's that.

There's a ridiculous amount of junk littering his bed – _shit, shit, I'm sorry this is so messy,_ Kenny apologizes while he attempts to shove all of his Playboys, video games, textbooks he's never once cracked open, et al, onto the floor; Butters shuffles his feet on the mustard carpet, smiles, and says, _don't worry, I kinda like your mess_ , so Kenny calms down a little – and even once that's cleared off, the rest of the process isn't exactly smooth sailing. Their clothes are leaden, weighted down with rainwater, and they can't help but laugh at their bungled endeavors to peel the clothes off of each other's lanky frame. Kenny notes every article of clothing as it falls to the floor: a green and white t-shirt that reads 'South Park High Choir' (Butters'). A pair of black Converse, kicked haphazardly at a too-full trashcan (Kenny's). A sheer blue windbreaker, forming a pathetic pile next to the nightstand (Butters'). On and on it goes until they slide under the covers in nothing but their pants, and then it's just skin on skin and some fabric on fabric and lips on lips and then nobody is laughing because the mood has shifted. This is big. This is monumental. This is so much of what Kenny wants and so much of what he never expected to have and there is no way at all that he's fucking prepared for any of this, but he's going to try. He has to.

He's a beautiful thing, Butters is. Outside, the rain is still falling hard as ever, banging on their thin dilapidated roof overhead and clinging in globules to the window. The light comes in all soft and bluish-gray and slots itself down Butters' bare chest, and Kenny thinks _gorgeous, gorgeous_ , as he kicks off his pants and pulls a blanket over himself because he feels too inadequate, too vulnerable, especially when compared to Butters. Being around normal people with his hood down is scary enough; being naked, exposed – both physically and emotionally – around the boy he cares about more than anything else? That's scary as _shit_. If Butters thinks he's inadequate, though, he doesn't act like it. He cants up and into Kenny's mouth, even though it probably tastes like an ashtray; his hands roam everywhere, sifting through Kenny's hair, gliding down Kenny's back, and even though Kenny is just so scarred, so incomplete, so _imperfect_ , Butters treats him like he's the opposite of all that. Butters treats him like he's worth something more than a prop, a poor kid who'll be your friend and do just about anything for a quick buck. No one's ever come even remotely close to treating him like that. No one besides Butters. It's almost too much for Kenny, and he just can't seem to get Butters' goddamn pants undone.

"Sheesh, Ken…," Butters whispers. He slides his fingers into the ribbed grooves of Kenny's knuckles, watches them shiver and shift like tectonic plates. "You're shakin' like a leaf."

Kenny smiles and presses a soft kiss to the center of Butters' chest. "Yeah, but so are you," he points out.

"I know. It's just…" Butters licks his lips. "I-It's just, you're Kenny. You're Mysterion. _I'm_ s'posed to be the one that's scared – not you."

Well. That's just. Kenny isn't sure how, or even if, he can reply to that. What Butters doesn't know is that Kenny is scared of a lot of things: he's scared of having no future, of amounting to nothing, of never leaving South Park, of turning out just like his parents, of the possibility that he's going to live forever, but most of all, he's scared of this thing he shares with Butters, this tenuous, indescribable, all-encompassing _thing_ , and he's scared that he's going to ruin it forever. Sometimes, it paralyzes him. Like right now. His knees are planted firmly on either side of Butters' legs, his free hand still trapped beneath Butters' fingers while his other one fights to get that zipper undone, and for a moment, he can't move. But then Butters kisses the corner of his mouth and gives him this little smile, one that seems to say _go on, it's okay,_ and the confidence just fans out from Kenny's chest to every extremity until he knows he can do this. He grazes his nose along Butters' neck in thanks as nimble fingers work to pull down his pants.

The preparation is… a little awkward, but Kenny had been kind of expecting that anyways. Sex with girls is something he's used to, something he's done a few times before, but sex with another guy – he's only done that once, and that involved smoking out a greasy-haired douchebag from Middle Park who had the nerve to give Kenny five bucks during the post coital afterglow like he was just some common whore. So beyond that incident and his ventures into the world of gay porn, Kenny doesn't have much experience. But he gets it done, and when he finally pushes in, soft and slow and careful, so so so careful, and Butters' slender fingers tighten around the hairs at the nape of his neck, it's just – _oh._ It solidifies everything in his mind, why he's been mostly content to settle with not getting anything else in life over the years but he wants, no, _needs_ to have Butters, and he thinks to himself that he'd be fine living forever like this, without a dollar to his name and a body inoculated with addictive genes and a predisposition toward dying every few weeks, as long as he has Butters to kiss him, to hold him, to make him feel like it's going to be okay in the end. But, the thing is. The thing is, he doesn't _know_ if he's ever going to have a future like that, or if he's ever going to have anything with Butters beyond what they have in this moment.

So he commits everything to memory: the tiny smatter of freckles spreading across Butters' shoulders like the Milky Way, the ones he drags his mouth across; the sounds Butters makes, the sharp intakes of breath when Kenny touches him here, kisses him there, pushes in like this, angles his body like that; the faint, pale, scraggly pink stripe winding down Butters' left eye, an echo of an accident from long ago, and the way Butters hums and kisses his temple reassuringly when Kenny touches it, too full of regrets and too lacking in words. Underneath him, Butters is writhing, literally _writhing_ , and gasping out all these quiet, modest little noises, even though Kenny is still moving so slow and so careful, even though it drives him _wild_ , and Kenny is whispering promises in Butters' ear, promises he doesn't know if he can keep, _I got you, I got you, gonna take care of you, gonna make it better,_ _gonna be your family_ , and Kenny's never taken care of anyone before so he just doesn't know if he _can_ , but he's going to try. He wants so badly to be everything Butters needs, and Kenny's kind of spent his whole life trying to be everything for everyone but this is different, because Butters _is_ everything to him. Butters is that first day in preschool with the paint on his nose. Butters is a crayon picture of the two of them soaring high, high, high in the sky, high above South Park, high above everyone who's ever wronged them or never bothered to understand. Butters is the damp scent of a rainy day in his nose, the pleasant ache low in his chest, the heat all around him, the air he's breathing, the voice in his head, in his ears, _Kenny, Kenny, Kenny_ , and Kenny reaches down between them, grabs Butters, gives a few flicks of his wrist, and Butters is the tingling all over that follows, _Butters, Butters, Butters_.

It takes a few moments for the initial shockwaves to wear off, and then Kenny is flopping down on the tiny space of mattress next to Butters. He watches through hazy eyes as Butters watches him back, bearing that same look again – of unfathomable fascination, even _admiration_ , like Butters is seeing something completely unreal – and the corners of his mouth quirk into a helpless little half-smile when Butters scoots closer, intertwines their fingers, and traces the lines on Kenny's palm. He loves Butters.

"You're the best, Kenny," Butters whispers sincerely, kissing along his collarbone, sucking on his neck.

Kenny holds him and tries so, _so_ hard not to worry.

 **xx.**

When Kenny wakes up the morning after, there's a big empty nothing in the space where Butters used to be and a neon blue Post-It note next to a mug of coffee and a box of Pop 'Ems on his bedside table.

The front side of the note reads: 'Ken- I'm real sorry I can't be here when you wake up, but my Dad is still at the house and I'm betting he'll be mighty pissed off if I come home late smelling like you (he's kind of gay too, so I think he can scent it or something). Plus, you just look so peaceful when you're asleep. You have this little smile on your face and your hand kind of twitches when I try to get out of bed. Did you know that? Well now you do.'

The back side, with a coffee ring overlapping in the upper right corner, says: '(sorry, ran out of space) I wanted to make you breakfast in bed, but you didn't really have anything in the kitchen pantry besides Pop Tarts + cereal, so I hopped on your bike and got you some coffee and Pop Ems the Valero. Is that okay? I went over a pothole but I checked and your tires are fine. Anyways I hope you like your coffee (one time you told me you liked it black, 'just like your men', so that's how I made it even though you were probably just messing with me) and everyone likes Pop Ems so I think you'll like those too.

I didn't want to tell you like this but [scribbled out] Can we talk later? –Butters'

A few heartbeats pass by before Kenny's sleep-addled brain can fully process the note. He sets it back down on the table, lets the sugary glaze from a Pop 'Em settle thick on his tongue, and washes it all down with a swig of coffee. He tries to feel good about the high school diploma tacked to the wall across from his bed. July sunlight shafts through the tiny half-patched hole in his ceiling and warms Kenny's skin, but he's shivering with apprehension on the inside.

 **xx.**

There's a piggy bank in Kenny's closet, though 'piggy bank' is somewhat of a misnomer; it's actually just an old Folgers can with a slit cut through the top so Kenny can slide in the miscellaneous pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, and crumpled-up bills he's accumulated over the years. It's stowed away in Kenny's closet because if it were anywhere else, his parents would have already ransacked it and spent all the money inside on booze. In past years, before Kenny got a steady paying job, this was less of a dire necessity and more of a safety precaution – before Mulligan's Hardware Store, there _was_ no potential booze money to ransack. Now, however, the crinkled green edges of an Andrew Jackson poke out through the meticulously cut dispenser, and when Kenny prepares to count his earnings, a happy clink-clank of coins issues from the Folgers can.

His parents are sitting on the couch watching Jackass reruns when Kenny tells them he'll be running away for the remainder of summer. On the screen, a fat man doubles over in pain. They don't look at him.

"It's not forever, or anything," Kenny tries, thinking they're at a loss for words. "I'll be back in a couple weeks."

"That's nice," his Dad says, rolling a joint right there on their sorry excuse for a coffee table.

"I have money, so I should be able to get by," Kenny continues.

"You've got money? Damn it, Kenny, we could've used that to pay the heating bills," his Mom says, not even flinching when her husband lights up.

"It's summer," Kenny reminds them flatly. They don't seem to understand what he's saying, so Kenny switches tactics. "I don't really know where I'm going. I don't know what kind of people I'll see. I could die, or get raped, and you would never know."

These would be trigger words to most parents, but not to Kenny's; as such, their only response is none at all, and Kenny returns to his room with an annoyed yet unsurprised clench to his jaw.

At the crack of dawn, Kenny wakes up so he can check the contents of his hand-me-down camouflage tote bag: a change of clothes, a bottle of water, three packets of Pop Tarts, a roll of toilet paper, a pencil and a notepad, and finally, his wallet and cell phone (though the chance that it'll get service outside Park County is slim to none). The bag's weight on his shoulder is light yet reassuring, and it makes a steady _clap clap_ against the jut of his hip as he walks down a sunrise-drenched street, leaving everything behind – at least for a little while.

After a week or so of palling around with a gaggle of friendly Denverite panhandlers and applying duct tape to the soles of his threadbare Converse in the light from a barrel bonfire, Kenny yearns for something a little more stable. He peels the newly-repaired soles off his shoes, puts on his best puppy-dog-eyes-and-protruding-lip beggar look – all in a concerted effort to appear victimized – and stations himself outside an antique store on South Broadway, where he remembers what Thumbless Bob said about self defense and waits for either a nostalgic old lady or some hipster couple to take pity on him.

(" _(It's a good thing I have no dignity)_ ," he grinningly told the aforementioned Thumbless Bob, who just shook his head in wordless amazement.)

Kenny's benefactor comes in the form of a petite elderly woman named Glenda. When she sees him there, curled up on the sidewalk with his mismatched socks sticking out the bottoms of his shoes and a face that would make Mr. T cry, she hauls him up and dusts him off with one arthritic hand before dragging Kenny back to her house. "Oh, you look just like my Grandson!" she says probably five million times as she reheats a bowl of linguini, readies the guest room, and paws over a fresh change of clothes that used to belong to this grandson of hers. At the dinner table that night, Glenda doesn't pry into what, exactly, led such a smart young man like Kenny to take up semi-permanent residence in the Denver antique district – thankfully so. But she continues to mention her grandson every once in awhile, and Kenny can't help but wonder why she keeps referring to him in the past tense.

" _(Where is he now?)_ " Kenny asks, deciding this is an appropriate way to broach the subject.

She smiles sadly and touches the rosary hanging from her neck. "In Heaven."

" _(I'm sorry)_ ," Kenny says.

They eat the rest of their dinner in relative silence. When Kenny gets up to do the dishes, however, the thought occurs to him that maybe he should share something about himself with this woman who was kind enough to let him in on such an important part of her life. He tells Glenda about his life in South Park, about Stan and Kyle and poor Cartman without a father and poor Butters with two restrictive parents who are in the middle of a nasty divorce and… well, mostly Butters. In a side pocket of his tote bag is the picture from fourth grade of the two of them in a biplane, the only sentimental item he bothered to pack, and he takes it out to show Glenda.

" _(I'm in love with him)_ ," Kenny explains, his eyes widening a moment later. He didn't mean to say it.

It's absurd, Kenny thinks, him randomly professing his love for a boy he knows so well to this lady he's known only five hours, a lady who could very well be against homosexual relationships, but Glenda just raises an eyebrow at him and says: "Well, if you've got this wonderful boy back home, then why are you still here?"

Kenny cannot answer that.

In the morning, after thanking Glenda profusely for the food and the company and the shelter, Kenny does what any respectable immortal would do: he finds the nearest train station, lays down on the tracks, and waits for a hissing locomotive to send him back to his own bed in his own town.

 **xx.**

The first thing Kenny sees when he wakes up, almost instantly, is the words _WELCOME BACK!_ scrawled in Xacto marker paint on his bedroom ceiling. For a few seconds, he is confused; did his parents put that up there? Is this some misguided attempt on their part to make up for not caring about Kenny's departure? But then, as the splitting pain in his skull subsides, Kenny remembers, oh yeah, _he_ was the one who wrote that message in a fit of smarmy teenage cynicism. Its true origins would be disappointing if they weren't so fucking funny.

What he initially thought – that his parents were, for once, glad to have him back home again – ends up being not so far from the truth. Kenny splurges on a long shower, letting the curtains of lukewarm water cascade over his hair and rawboned body, slips into a shirt and sweatpants, and pads into the kitchen, refreshed, only to find his parents waiting for him with a virtual buffet of marked-down meat, on-sale salad, and food-stamp fruit. While he proceeds to shovel this delectable spread down his throat, Stuart and Carol talk about how much they missed their son, especially when there were rabid squirrels in the wall and no one would volunteer to get rid of them, because really, Kenny, it sure would've been fucking nice if you'd been there to lend a helpin' hand or two. A Willie Nelson song pouring from the radio is the soundtrack to their earnest smiles.

"Uh, also," his Dad says, leaning in the corridor between kitchen and living room, "we got a surprise for you."

"A surprise?" Kenny parrots.

The surprise, as it turns out, is not a material item at all, but rather a party. Graduation party, Welcome Back party, whatever. Mostly, Kenny thinks this is an excuse for his parents to get drunk and not have to worry about feeling out of place or looking like bad parents. It doesn't bother him, though, not really, and they obviously had Kenny in mind when they called up all of his closest friends and classmates, so he goes along with it.

It's a small get-together. Around 6:00, guests start trickling in, and continue to pop up at random intervals throughout the evening. They include Stan, Kyle, and Cartman, of course, as well as Clyde, Craig, Tweek, Token, and the four girls from their class whose names Kenny can't quite remember that they bring with them. While not exactly talkative, Kenny is a gracious enough host. He mills about from person to person, engages them in required if somewhat bland conversation about college and what it's like to live on the streets for a grand total of fifteen days – "Like, no watching the Rockies game, or jacking off to porn? That must suck, man," Clyde says, to which Kenny slyly quips, "No one said anything about not jacking off" – and when he's not doing this or mediating confrontations between a very inebriated Cartman and a very self-righteous Kyle, he nurses his Natty Ice and thinks about Butters. The tree by the fence, the one with retarded branches – that's the one he and Butters climbed in sixth grade, where they tried and failed miserably to make a fort. That section of the roof with the loose shingles – that's where they would sit and stargaze and talk for hours about everything and nothing at all. Take a sip, reminisce. Reminisce, feel nervous and self-conscious, then share a cigarette with Craig to calm said nerves. Rinse and repeat. A thought crosses his mind: maybe Butters won't show up. Maybe Butters won't show up because he's mad at Kenny. He tries not to think about this.

Not long after the kitschy Dale Earnhardt Jr. clock on the back wall strikes 8, Stan takes Kenny aside and says, "So, you wanna talk about it?"

"About what?"

"Butters. Duh."

"Not really," Kenny says. The silence between them is punctuated only by the sounds of distant conversation.

"He'll show up. He likes you, yeah. Like, _really_ likes you. He probably even loves you."

Kenny scoffs at this. There's a part of him that expects a typical _you know, I learned something today_ lecture, but Stan just pats him on the shoulder without further incidence and heads back to where Kyle and Cartman are exchanging blows. Kenny watches him go. He downs the last of his drink and tosses it so it flies over the fence. The ground shifts and rolls beneath his feet. Whether it's from the alcohol or his imagination or something else, he can't be sure. There's a warmth in his chest, a weight, tinged with the sharp edge of hope and possibility. _Stop_ , he thinks, muscle memory recalling the sight of a bare tree on Christmas morning, the scent of Butters clinging to his empty sheets, living and dying and seeing and touching and _loving_ but never truly having. _Stop._ He cards his fingers through his hair, breathes in deep. He can't set himself up for disappointment. He just can't.

But when he turns around, all of his preparation – all of his isolation – goes right out the window. Butters somehow looks different than the last time they saw each other, even if it's only been two weeks; his hair looks maybe a little longer, a little more sunkissed, and his posture is different, too, all straight-backed and confident and like he's finally ready to take on the world. A subtle, gradual metamorphosis. The most notable difference, the one that strikes Kenny immediately, is Butters' grin, so big and so bright and at the same time so _soft_. It's the biggest grin he's ever seen on Butters' face, which is a feat in and of itself because Butters has grinned a lot over the years. Sometimes it's because he got a good grade in school. Sometimes it's because his parents were nice to him for once. Now, it's because of Kenny. It has to be. Right?

"Kenny," Butters says simply, and then he's throwing his arms around Kenny, and then he's twirling them around, and then he's laughing, and then they're kissing and somehow they end up on the ground. "Kenny, Kenny," he repeats over and over again between kisses, and it is answer enough. It's all Kenny could ever ask for.

They stay like that for awhile, just kissing and touching each other because now they _can_ and they've gotten to the point where they don't even care what anyone thinks, but they have to stop at some point. Butters props himself up on his elbows and says, "You shoulda taken me with you."

"I didn't think you'd want to come," Kenny admits, laying his palm on Butters' cheek because he can do that now, too.

Butters thinks for a minute. Then he thinks some more. Then he smiles. "I wanna be wherever you're at."

"Okay," Kenny says, grinning like a dumbass. "Yeah, okay. I want that, too."

Hand in hand, they pick each other up off the ground and climb a makeshift stairway of overturned green recycling containers to get to the roof. They're alone now, and maybe they've always been kind of alone in their own ways, both of them having led lives of mutual separation, but there's a difference between being alone and being lonely and it's something that Kenny's never really understood before this moment. Lonely? He's felt that way many times, but he's never truly been alone. The evidence is right there in the spaces between his fingertips, in the lips on his cheek, in the steady _bump-ba-bump_ of a heart beating in iambic pentameter next to him. It's right there, in the memories of secluded ponds and kisses outside a church and lingering hugs between the aisles of a hardware store. It's right there. It's always been. Kenny has to laugh at this, one of those laughs that only come about when the body is so happy it has no other way to physically manifest itself.

"Shit," he says, "I told a bunch of hobos I was in love with you. How goddamn pathetic is _that_?"

They both laugh, but then Butters seems to realize the implications of what Kenny said because he grows quiet a second later. "When you were gone, it kinda felt like you were still there, 'cause everything reminded me of you," he admits.

Kenny knows he meant to say _I love you, too_.

In the aftermath of their confessions, implied and explicit, they sit there wrapped up in each other and watch the world moving around them. From here, Kenny can see everything: Cartman wiping a stream of ruby red away from his nose, Kyle fingering a purple bruise, Stan rolling his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose at the both of them, but they're all laughing because they're all friends even when they don't act like it; the moon outlining every house in South Park, the mountains just past it, and all the towns and cities and opportunities that lie beyond, and it makes everything _shine_ because the world is beautiful even when it doesn't seem like it.

From here, Kenny can see what he's had all along.

 **THE END**


End file.
